BY 

THEODORE  JESSUP 


A  PAPER  READ  BEFORE  THE 

CHICAGO  LITERARY  CLUB 

APRIL  10,  1916 


CHICAGO  LITERARY  CLUB 
1916 


IJSTCRICAl  SURVEY 


ILLINOIS  STATE  PARKS 


NATIONAL  PARKS. 

Our  National  Government  owns  fourteen  National  Parks,  with  a 
total  area  of  nearly  five  million  acres,  all  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Department  of  the  Interior.  It  also  owns  thirty-one  National  monu- 
ments, of  which  nineteen  are  in  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  ten  in 
the  Department  of  Agriculture,  and  two  in  the  War  Department. 

Just  where  the  boundary  lies  between  national  and  state  parks  it 
is  not  easy  to  determine.  Many  of  the  national  parks  are  in  sparsely 
settled  regions  where  the  local  communities  could  not  provide  the  care 
and  protection  necessary  even  were  they  disposed  to  do  so.  Usually 
their  selection  has  been  based  on  scenic  attractions  so  unusual  that  the 
appeal  they  make  is  not  local  but  nation  wide.  Few  state  parks  are 
important  enough  to  attract  visitors  from  a  long  distance.  In  general, 
the  nation  cares  for  the  largest  and  most  important,  the  states  for  those 
of  less  scenic  value  or  to  preserve  some  historic  site  of  local  interest. 

NEW  YORK  PARKS. 

New  York  has  the  best  developed  state  park  system  and  has  under 
its  care  reservations  at  Niagara  Falls,  Stony  Point,  Watkins  Glen,  the 
Great  Gorge  of  the  Genesee  River,  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson,  im- 
mense tracts  in  the  Adironacks  and  in  Rockland  and  Orange  Counties. 
In  addition  it  has  cared  for  many  survivals  from  its  Colonial  and 
Revolutionary  past. 

EARLY  ILLINOIS  AS  DESCRIBED  BY  TRAVELERS. 

Suppose  we  begin  the  discussion  of  what  Illinois  is  doing  in  the 
same  line  with  a  few  quotations  from  literary  visitors  to  Illinois  prior 
to  the  middle  of  the  last  century  who  saw  the  state  in  its  primitive 
condition. 

The  early  French  explorers  such  as  La  Salle,  Marquette,  Hennepin, 
and  Joutel,  each  gave  terse  and  explanatory  sentences  concerning  the 
country  of  the  Illinois,  which  are  often  quoted.  Said  Joutel :  "It  may 
be  truly  affirmed  that  the  country  of  the  Illinois  enjoys  all  that  can 
make  it  accomplished,  not  only  as  to  ornament  but  also  for  its  plentiful 
production  of  all  things  required  for  the  support  of  human  life." 

The  condensed  Tonty :  "As  for  the  country  of  the  Illinois,  the  river 
runs  one  hundred  leagues  from  Fort  St.  Louis  to  where  it  falls  into 
the  Mississippi.  Thus  it  may  be  said  to  contain  some  of  the  finest  lands 
ever  seen.  The  climate  is  the  same  as  that  of  Paris." 

[3] 


Harriet  Martineau  visited  Chicago  in  1836  and  made  an  excursion 
inland  as  far  as  Joliet,  taking  a  route  on  the  west  side  of  the  Des  Plaines 
valley.  After  crossing  the  river,  probably  at  Lyons,  she  wrote:  "As 
we  proceeded,  the  scenery  became  more  and  more  like  what  all  trav- 
elers compare  it  to  be — a  boundless  English  Park.  The  grass  was 
wilder,  the  occasional  footpath  not  so  trim,  and  the  single  trees  less 
majestic;  but  no  park  ever  displayed  anything  equal  to  the  grouping  of 
the  trees  within  the  windings  of  the  blue,  brimming  rive  Aux  Plaines." 

Fourteen  years  later,  in  1850,  Fredrika  Bremer,  the  Swedish  novel- 
ist, spent  some  days  in  Chicago  and  passed  through  northern  Illinois 
to  Galena.  To  see  the  prairies  near  the  city,  she  was  driven  out  18 
miles  as  far  as  a  tree  covered  elevation,  perhaps  Hinsdale;  she  wrote: 
"The  whole  state  of  Illinois  is  one  vast  rolling  prairie  (that  is  to  say 
a  plain  of  low,  wave-like  hills).  .  .  .  My  new  friends  wished  me  to 
pass  a  day  of  prairie  life.  We  drove  out  early  in  the  morning,  three 
families  in  four  carriages.  The  day  was  glorious;  the  sky  of  brightest 
blue,  the  sun  of  purest  gold,  and  the  air  full  of  vitality,  but  calm; 
and  there,  in  that  brilliant  light,  stretched  itself  far,  far  out  into  the 
infinite,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  discern,  an  ocean-like  extent,  the  waves 
of  which  were  sunflowers,  asters,  and  gentians.  The  plain  was  splen- 
did with  them,  especially  with  the  sunflowers,  which  were  frequently 
four  yards  high  and  stood  far  above  the  head  of  our  tallest  gentleman. 

"We  ate  our  dinner  in  a  little  wood  which  lay  like  a  green  shrub 
upon  that  treeless  flowery  plain.  It  was  an  elevation,  and  from  this 
point  the  prairie  stretched  onward  its  softly  waving  extent  to  the  hori- 
zon. .  .  The  sun-bright  soil  remained  here  still  in  its  primeval  great- 
ness and  magnificence,  unchecked  by  human  hands,  covered  with  its 
flowers,  protected  and  watched  alone  by  the  eye  of  the  sun.  And  the 
bright  sunflowers  nodded  and  beckoned  in  the  wind  as  if  inviting 
millions  of  beings  to  the  festival  set  out  on  the  rich  table  of  the  earth. 
To  me  it  was  a  festival  of  light.  It  was  really  a  great  and  glorious 
sight;  to  my  feeling,  less  common  and  grander  than  Niagara  itself." 

So  much  for  two  views  at  Chicago's  doorstep.  Seven  years  earlier 
than  Fredrika  Bremer,  in  1843,  Margaret  Fuller  made  her  often  re- 
ferred to  visit  to  the  Rock  River  Country,  and  of  that  lovely  valley  she 
said: 

"Of  Illinois  in  general,  it  has  often  been  remarked  that  it  bears 
the  character  of  country  which  has  been  inhabited  by  a  nation  skilled 
like  the  English  in  all  the  ornamental  arts  of  life,  especially  in  land- 
scape gardening.  That  the  villas  and  castles  seem  to  have  been  burnt, 
the  enclosures  taken  down,  but  the  velvet  lawns,  the  flower  gardens,  the 
stately  parks,  scattered  at  graceful  intervals  by  the  decorous  hand  of 
art,  the  frequent  deer  and  the  peaceful  herd  of  cattle  that  make  pic- 
tures of  the  plain,  all  suggest  more  of  the  masterly  mind  of  man,  than 
the  prodigal,  but  careless,  motherly  love  of  nature.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  the  Rock  River  Country.  The  river  flows  sometime  through  these 
parks  and  lawns,  then  betwixt  high  bluffs,  whose  grassy  ridges  are 
covered  with  fine  trees  or  broken  with  crumbling  stone,  that  easily 
assumes  the  forms  of  buttress,  arch,  and  clustered  columns." 

[4] 


She  quotes  in  her  book  "Summer  on  the  Lakes"  a  letter  written 
in  1840  by  a  friend  which  gives  a  glimpse  of  the  lower  Illinois  Valley: 

"Griggsville  is  situated  on  the  west  side  of  the  Illinois  River  on  a 
high  prairie;  between  it  and  the  river  is  a  long  range  of  bluffs  which 
reaches  a  hundred  miles  north  and  south,  then  a  wide  river  bottom, 
and  then  the  river.  It  was  a  mild,  showery  morning,  and  I  directed  my 
steps  toward  the  bluffs.  They  are  covered  with  forests,  not  like  our 
forests,  tangled  and  impassable,  but  where  the  trees  stand  fair  and 
apart  from  one  another,  so  that  you  might  ride  everywhere  about  on 
horseback,  and  the  tops  of  the  hills  are  generally  bald  and  covered 
with  green  turf  like  our  pastures.  Indeed,  the  whole  country  reminds 
me  perpetually  of  one  that  has  been  carefully  cultivated  by  a  civilized 
people,  who  have  been  suddenly  removed  from  the  earth,  with  all  the 
works  of  their  hands  and  the  land  given  into  nature's  keeping.  The 
solitudes  are  not  savage;  they  have  not  that  dreary,  stony  loneliness 
that  used  to  affect  me  in  our  own  country;  they  never  repel;  there 
are  no  lonely  heights,  no  isolated  spots,  but  all  is  gentle,  mild,  in- 
viting— all  is  accessible." 

This  last  sentiment  was  reechoed  by  Caroline  M.  Kirkland,  who 
made  a  trip  far  south  over  the  prairies  in  1858  and  contributed  a  paper 
to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  under  the  caption,  "Illinois  in  Springtime." 

"All  is  life,  movement,  freedom, — joy.  Not  on  the  very  Alps  where 
their  black  needles  seem  to  dart  into  the  blue  depths,  or  snow-fields  to 
mingle  with  the  clouds  is  the  immediate  vital  sympathy  of  Earth  with 
Heaven  more  evident  and  striking." 

In  the  thirties,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  whose  brother  was  a  pioneer 
at  Princeton,  made  one  of  his  several  trips  to  Illinois;  his  first  one 
being  north  from  St.  Louis  on  horseback.  His  poem  "The  Prairie"  is 
one  of  the  records  of  this  trip.  It  begins: 


"These  are  the  Gardens  of  the  Desert,  these 

The  unshaven  fields,  boundless  and  beautiful, 
For  which  the  speech  of  England  has  no  name — 

The  Prairies.     I  behold  them  for  the  first, 
And  my  heart  swells,  while  the  dilated  sight 

Takes  in  the  encircling  vastness.     Lo!  they  stretch 
In  airy  undulations,  far  away, 

As  if  the  ocean,  in  his  gentlest  swell, 
Stood  still,  with  all  his  rounded  billows  fixed, 

And  motionless  forever. — Motionless? 
No — they  are  all  unchained  again:  The  clouds 

Sweep  over  with  their  shadows,  and  beneath 
The  surface  rolls  and  fluctuates  to  the  eye; 

Dark  hollows  seem  to  glide  along  and  chase 
The  sunny  ridges.     Breezes  of  the  south 


have  ye  fanned 
A  nobler  or  a  lovelier  scene  than  this?" 

[5] 


Perhaps  the  best  description  of  the  unspoiled  prairies  is  that  quo- 
tation from  Captain  Basil  Hall,  an  English  traveller,  given  in  Gerhard's 
"Illinois  as  it  Is,"  published  in  1857.  Here  is  a  part  of  the  passage 
only: 

"The  charm  of  a  prairie"  (and  he  is  speaking  of  the  Grand  Prairie 
which  began  beyond  the  Kankakee  River  and  extended  indefinitely 
southward)  "consists  in  its  extension — its  green,  flowery  carpet,  its 
undulating  surface  and  the  skirt  of  forest  whereby  it  is  surrounded; 
the  latter  feature  being  of  all  others  the  most  significant  and  expressive, 
since  it  characterizes  the  landscape  and  defines  the  form  and  boundary 
of  the  plain.  If  the  prairie  is  little,  its  greatest  beauty  consists  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  encompassing  edge  of  forests,  which  may  be  compared 
to  the  shores  of  a  lake,  being  intersected  with  many  deep,  inward  bends, 
as  so  many  inlets  and  at  intervals  projecting  very  far,  not  unlike  a 
promontory  or  protruding  arm  of  land.  These  projections  sometimes 
so  closely  approach  each  other  that  the  traveller  passing  through  be- 
tween them  may  be  said  to  walk  in  the  midst  of  an  alley  overshadowed 
by  the  forest  before  he  enters  again  upon  another  broad  prairie. 
Where  the  plain  is  extensive,  the  delineation  of  the  forest  in  the  far 
background  appears  as  would  a  misty  coast  at  some  distance  upon  the 
ocean.  The  eye  sometimes  surveys  the  green  prairie  without  discover- 
ing on  the  illimitable  plain  a  tree  or  bush,  or  any  other  object,  save 
the  wilderness  of  flowers  and  grass,  while  on  other  occasions  the  view 
is  enlivened  by  the  groves  dispersed  like  islands  over  the  plain,  or  by 
a  solitary  tree  rising  above  the  wilderness.  The  resemblance  to  the 
sea  which  some  of  these  prairies  exhibited  was  really  most  striking. 
.  .  .  There  is  one  in  particular,  near  the  middle  of  the  Grand 
Prairie,  if  I  recollect  rightly,  where  the  ground  happened  to  be  of 
the  rolling  character  above  alluded  to  and  where,  excepting  in  the 
article  of  color,  and  that  was  not  widely  different  from  the  tinge  of 
some  seas,  the  similarity  was  so  striking  that  I  almost  forgot  where 
I  was." 

These  brief  literary  glimpses  of  an  original  beauty  fast  disappear- 
ing are  the  prelude  to  the  discussion  of  State  Parks  in  Illinois.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  a  mistake  to  use  the  plural  in  this  connection. 
There  is  only  one — Starved  Rock  Park.  The  question  immediately 
resolves  itself  into  these  two :  Should  there  be  any  more.  If  so,  where 
should  they  be  located? 


HISTORIC  SITES. 

If  we  shall  take  an  inventory  of  what  the  state  has  set  apart  as  state 
reservations,  and  of  the  historical  monuments  to  which  she  has  contri- 
buted, and  list  the  historical  markers  and  monuments  erected  by  private 
funds,  the  result  will  be  somewhat  as  follows: 

In  1903  the  Legislature  made  the  first  appropriation  of  money  to 
pay  for  acreage  to  preserve  a  historical  site.  This  included  a  few  acres 
near  Metropolis  in  Massac  County,  where  Fort  Massac  was  located. 

[6] 


Since  there  was  some  occupation  of  this  site  by  the  French,  who  con- 
nected it  with  Kaskaskia  by  a  blazed  roadway  through  the  forest, 
and  also  by  the  English,  in  the  thirteen  year  interval  between  the 
French  and  American  occupancy,  under  the  last  of  whom  it  was  re- 
built, it  connects  all  three,  French,  English,  and  American,  in  its  past. 
There  is  no  record  of  its  use  after  the  War  of  1812.  The  Daughters  of 
the  American  Revolution  have  emphasized  the  site  by  the  erection  of 
a  monument. 

In  1911,  the  Illinois  Park  Commission  was  created,  and  its  first 
purchase  was  280  acres  at  Starved  Rock  in  La  Salle  County  at  a  cost 
of  $146,000.  Since  then  the  commission,  acting  under  powers  granted 
in  the  bill,  has  secured  over  five  hundred  additional  acres,  until  we 
now  have  a  park  of  eight  hundred  fifty-five  acres,  with  prospect  of 
further  enlargement. 

The  commission  has  also  acquired  ten  acres  at  Fort  Chartres  in 
Randolph  County,  which  will  preserve  from  absolute  despoliation  what 
yet  remains  of  the  most  complete  and  costliest  of  the  French  forts  in 
the  upper  Mississippi  Valley.  The  one  structure  still  standing  is  the 
old  powder  magazine,  which  is  in  a  fair  state  of  preservation  and  is 
the  oldest  building  in  the  state.  Most  of  the  outer  stone  walls  of  the 
fort,  which  were  originally  two  feet  thick  and  fifteen  feet  high,  have 
either  been  carted  away  by  people  who  treated  them  as  a  stone  quarry, 
or  else  were  undermined  by  the  Mississippi  whose  near  encroachment 
caused  its  abandonment  as  a  fort  by  the  English  a  few  years  after  its 
conquest  by  them.  Fort  Chartres  has  little  scenic  value,  is  not  easily 
accessible,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  often  visited. 

Some  years  ago,  when  it  was  evident  that  the  Mississippi  would 
gradually  destroy  the  Kaskaskia  village  site,  the  French  Cemetery  was 
removed  and  a  suitable  monument  erected  at  state  expense. 

An  unusual  memorial  in  Chicago  is  the  cross  erected  through  the 
initiative  of  Miss  Valentine  Smith  at  the  foot  of  Robey  Street  and  the 
Chicago  River  to  mark  the  place  where  Father  Marquette  spent  his 
one  winter  (1674-75)  in  Chicago. 

There  have  been  few  serious  conflicts  between  the  whites  and  the 
Indians  on  Illinois  soil.  One  of  the  most  important  occurred  in  1730. 
In  that  year  the  French  decided  to  strike  a  stinging  blow  at  the  Fox 
Indians,  then  overrunning  Northern  Illinois,  and  who  seem  to  have  been 
the  Villistas  of  their  time.  One  body  of  French  troops  was  sent  up 
from  Fort  Chartres — 250  miles  away — which  united  with  another 
detachment  of  French  from  Fort  Miami  on  the  St.  Joseph  River  in 
Michigan — one  hundred  fifty  miles  away.  The  two  combined  forces 
with  Indian  allies  made  an  attacking  force  of  nearly  two  thousand. 
They  accomplished  their  purpose  and  slaughtered  between  three  hun- 
dred and  four  hundred  warriors,  women,  and  children — perhaps  the 
most  sanguinary  battle  ever  fought  within  the  state's  confines.  Just 
where  the  event  took  place  is  not  agreed  upon  by  the  historians.  The 
late  Mr.  J.  F.  Steward  spent  much  time  and  money  in  an  attempt  to 
prove  that  a  small  hill  just  below  Piano,  Kendall  County,  Illinois, 
was  the  right  location,  and  there  caused  to  be  placed  and  properly 

[7] 


inscribed  a  huge  boulder.  The  ground  was  deeded  to  a  school  district 
to  prevent  its  being  sold  for  taxes.  If  Historians  Quaife  and  Alvord 
who  have  devoted  more  time  to  Illinois  history  than  any  other  moderns, 
ever  find  a  better  authenticated  spot  the  boulder  can  be  moved. 

The  farthermost  western  outpost  of  America's  far  flung  battle  line 
in  the  War  of  1812  was  Fort  Edwards  on  the  Mississippi,  at  what  is 
now  Warsaw,  Illinois.  This  was  located  and  established  by  young 
Major  Zachary  Taylor  and  was  maintained  as  a  fort  until  1824.  On 
the  centennial  date  of  its  founding  the  state  erected  on  its  site  a  fifty 
foot  high  granite  monument  which  all  river  travelers  can  see  from  the 
boat  decks  as  they  pass. 

Mention  of  the  Fort  Dearborn  massacre  monument  at  18th  Street 
and  the  Lake,  Chicago,  must  be  made  in  connection  with  the  War  of 
1812.  This  was  a  graceful  memorial  erected  by  private  citizens. 

Fort  Armstrong,  on  the  Island  between  Davenport,  Iowa,  and  Rock 
Island,  Illinois,  dating  from  1816,  has  been  marked  by  a  monument 
erected  by  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  and  by  a  block 
house  replica  placed  there  by  the  Rock  Island  County  Historical  Soci- 
ety. Near  by  encounters  in  the  War  of  1812  on  Campbell  Island  and 
Credit  Island  have  been  or  soon  will  be  marked.  Blackhawk's  long 
time  residence  at  Rock  Island  is  to  be  commemorated  by  a  suitable 
monument  contributed  by  the  same  society. 

Blackhawk's  war  was  almost  a  bloodless  contest  in  Illinois,  except 
for  the  few  careless  men  who  lost  their  lives  in  the  Stillman  Valley 
encounter.  The  state  has  contributed  a  monument  to  mark  that 
disaster. 

At  this  same  time  a  group  of  Indians  surprised  a  happy  settlement 
on  Indian  Creek,  a  La  Salle  County  tributary  of  Fox  River.  The 
massacre  which  followed  was  about  the  only  one  of  its  kind  in  Illinois 
history,  and  merits  the  substantial  monument  which  has  recently  been 
erected  there  by  privately  subscribed  funds. 

In  connection  with  the  Blackhawk  War  incidents  should  be  men- 
tioned the  Indian  statue,  forty-eight  feet  high,  erected  in  1911  at  Oregon 
on  a  bluff  overlooking  the  beautiful  Rock  River  Valley.  Doubtless 
the  Blackhawk  tradition  had  something  to  do  with  the  inspiration  which 
caused  its  production.  Lorado  Taft  and  his  financial  aids  have — but 
why  not  quote  from  Edgar  A.  Bancroft's  dedicatory  address?  "There 
the  sculptor  has  placed  imperishably  the  Indian — not  sullen;  not  re- 
sentful; not  despondent;  not  surrendering;  but  simple;  unflinching; 
erect;  with  the  pathos  of  the  past  in  his  face,  the  tragedy  of  the  future 
in  his  eyes,  but  with  the  dauntless  courage  of  a  man  in  his  figure  and 
in  his  whole  attitude." 

Shabbona,  also  of  the  Blackhawk  War  period,  has  been  honored 
with  a  monument  and  a  small  park  bearing  his  name  some  twenty 
miles  from  Ottawa,  Illinois. 

The  state  has  from  time  to  time  contributed  memorials  to  certain 
of  her  distinguished  citizens,  such  as  to  Elisha  P.  Lovejoy  at  Alton,  to 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  in  Chicago,  and  to  Pierre  Menard  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  at  Springfield. 

[8] 


Three  quite  different  reminders  from  the  others  are  the  tablet  at 
Galesburg  and  the  inscribed  granite  boulders  at  Freeport  and  Ottawa, 
marking  the  places  of  delivery  of  the  1858  Lincoln-Douglas  debates. 

Very  recently,  at  Naples  in  Scott  County,  an  inscribed  boulder  was 
placed  at  the  point  where  in  July,  1861,  Colonel  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant 
encamped  with  his  first  command,  the  21st  Regiment  of  Illinois  Vol- 
unteers, which  was  on  its  way  from  Springfield  to  the  front. 

The  state,  while  not  the  owner  or  caretaker  of  the  Lincoln  house 
in  Springfield  and  the  Grant  house  in  Galena,  has,  at  least  in  more 
than  one  instance,  contributed  to  the  maintenance  of  these  two  historic 
houses. 

There  are  numerous  monuments  in  the  state  erected  to  the  citizen 
dead  of  the  Civil  War.  Possibly  none  surpasses  in  artistic  merit  the 
Oregon  memorial  by  Lorado  Taft,  dedicated  in  1916.  An  artistic  rival 
exists,  however,  in  the  memorial  erected  in  1915  at  Danville  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  soldiers  of  the  American  Revolution.  The  design,  a  drinking 
fountain,  is  by  Daniel  Chester  French.  A  part  of  the  cost  of  this  work 
was  born  by  the  State  and  the  balance  by  the  Daughters  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution. 

This  completes  my  historical  list;  it  is  not  exhaustive,  but  covers 
in  the  main  whatever  has  been  done  to  preserve,  perpetuate,  or  mark 
historically  important  places  in  Illinois.  Barring  political  conventions 
which  have  been  history  makers  of  national  concern,  very  little  but 
minor  matters  have  ever  taken  place  on  Illinois  soil,  and  few  historic 
sites  are  left  to  be  provided  for. 

PREHISTORIC  INDIAN  REMAINS. 

Archaeologically,  however,  Illinois  is  in  the  first  rank.  Peculiarly 
rich,  her  bluffs  and  valleys  and  prairie  groves  are  marked  by  mound 
builders'  remains.  They  have  never  been  scientifically  studied;  they 
have  never  been  exactly  mapped.  Many  and  many  a  mound  has  been 
vandalized  and  used  for  every  purpose  except  preservation.  Farm 
houses  and  barns  have  been  built  on  them  and  their  surface  plowed  and 
tilled  assiduously.  In  the  Mississippi  bottom  opposite  St.  Louis  is  the 
famous  Monk's  or  Cahokia  Mound,  the  largest  structure  of  prehistoric 
Indian  life  in  the  United  States.  It  is  larger  than  the  pyramid  of 
Ghizeh  and  altogether  as  wonderful,  considering  that  it  is  in  Illinois. 
The  Illinois  State  Park  Commission  has  urged  and  is  urging  every 
legislature  to  pass  a  bill  for  its  preservation.  Legislators  do  not  seem 
to  be  interested  in  archaeology.  In  1914  a  Cahokia  Mound  association 
was  formed  in  St.  Louis,  but  their  endeavor  is  to  get  the  United  States  to 
add  this  to  its  long  list  of  monuments.  Nothing  has  been  accomplished. 

This  great  temple  mound,  one  thousand  feet  long  and  half  as  wide, 
one  hundred  feet  high,  covering  five  or  six  acres,  is  the  largest  in  a 
group  of  fifty  or  sixty,  the  others  of  which  can  be  seen  from  its  top. 
The  material  of  which  it  is  composed  was  brought  at  least  three  miles. 
Although  placed  on  the  alluvial  bottom  of  the  river,  stiff  clay  from  the 
bluffs  was  used  as  building  material. 

[9] 


Fifteen  miles  to  the  east  of  this  great  group,  on  the  border  of  the 
high  open  prairie  in  St.  Glair  County,  is  Emerald  Mound,  the  most 
perfectly  preserved  mound  in  the  state — a  truncated  pyramid  with  a 
base  of  two  hundred  twenty-five  feet  and  a  top  of  one  hundred  fifty  feet. 
Unlike  the  Cahokia  Mound,  its  angles  are  sharp,  regular,  and  well 
preserved. 

Ohio  has  done  much  to  care  for  her  remarkable  prehistoric  remains, 
but  how  did  she  get  her  start?  Years  ago  her  serpent  mound  was 
threatened  with  destruction,  and  money  to  purchase  it,  through  the 
activity  of  a  Harvard  professor,  was  raised  among  the  women  of  Boston. 
To-day  it  is  owned  by  the  State  of  Ohio,  simply  because  Professor 
Putnam  of  Harvard  at  the  request  of  the  women  purchasers  deeded 
it  to  the  state. 

Will  it  be  necessary  to  form  a  Cahokia  Mound  Preservation  Society 
in  Boston  to  secure  to  Illinois  posterity  the  preservation  of  the  largest 
mass  of  earth  artificially  heaped  up  anywhere  in  the  world?  I  am  not 
sure  that  even  under  the  present  distressing  conditions,  if  a  subscrip- 
tion to  a  fund  for  its  preservation  were  opened  in  Berlin  or  London, 
in  Paris  or  Vienna,  the  money  would  not  stand  a  better  chance  of 
being  raised  than  it  would  from  a  modern  Illinois  legislature  and 
Governor. 

Is  there  any  danger?  A  street  car  company  has  made  tentative 
offers  to  buy  it  for  fill.  Recall  what  happened  to  the  Beardstown 
mound,  the  next  in  size  to  Cahokia  in  the  state.  As  long  ago  as  1837, 
that  town  began  to  use  the  clay  of  which  it  was  composed  to  surface 
its  sandy  streets  and  roads.  By  1850  it  was  nearly  gone.  To-day 
there  is  scarcely  an  outline  of  its  location  visible.  Harriet  Martineau's 
visit  to  Joliet  was  partly  to  see  a  similar  mound  which  has  long  ago 
been  put  to  practical  uses. 

Archaeologists  have  gone  so  far  as  to  roughly  classify  the  Illinois 
mounds  into  four:  the  burial  mounds;  the  temple  mounds,  to  which 
class  Cahokia  and  Emerald  mounds  belong;  the  stone  grave  burial 
mounds  (that  is,  a  dirt  mound  in  which  the  dead  were  protected  by  a 
sort  of  stone  sarcophagous)  ;  and,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  state, 
effigy  mounds,  the  best  known  of  which  is  the  turtle  mound  in  Rockford, 
protected  on  the  private  grounds  of  the  Beattie  family  for  seventy  years. 
There  is  scarcely  one  of  the  hundred  Illinois  counties  which  has  not 
some  of  these  reminders  of  the  Illinois  of  long  ago.  No  intervention 
by  the  state  is  more  needed  than  such  as  would  preserve  some  at  least 
of  the  more  remarkable  mounds. 

ILLINOIS  FORESTS. 

We  do  not  often  think  of  Illinois  as  particularly  rich  in  forest 
areas,  and  yet  her  lower  border  lands  were  once  the  cream  of  the 
country  and  a  big  tree  region  second  only  to  the  Pacific  Coast. 

Robert  Ridgway,  a  naturalist,  in  the  early  seventies  wrote  as 
follows:  "That  portion  of  the  Wabash  River  and  its  tributaries  lying 
south  of  latitude  38  degrees,  25  minutes,  contains  a  sylva  peculiarly 

[10] 


rich  and  also  remarkable  for  combining  within  one  area  many  of  the 
characteristic  trees,  as  well  as  other  plants,  of  the  northern,  southern, 
and  southwestern  portions  of  the  United  States,  besides  supporting  the 
vegetation  common  to  the  whole  Atlantic  region  or  'Eastern  Province.' 

"In  the  heavy  forests  of  the  bottom-lands,  which  in  many  places 
have  entirely  escaped  the  ravages  of  the  ax,  the  magnitude  of  the 
timber  is  such  as  is  unknown  to  the  scant  woods  of  the  eastern  states.  .  . 

"Of  the  ninety  to  a  hundred  species  of  the  lower  Wabash  Valley, 
thirty  are  known  to  reach  or  exceed  the  height  of  one  hundred  feet, 
while  four  of  them  (sycamore,  tulip-poplar,  pecan,  and  sweet  gum) 
attain  or  go  beyond  an  elevation  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
feet.  The  maximum  elevation  of  the  tallest  sycamore  and  tulip  trees 
is  probably  not  less  than  two  hundred  feet. 

"Going  into  these  woods  we  find  symmetrical,  solid  trunks,  six  feet 
and  upwards  in  diameter  and  fifty  feet  or  more  long,  to  be  not  un- 
common in  half  a  dozen  or  more  species;  while  now  and  then  we 
happen  on  one  of  those  old  sycamores,  for  which  the  rich  alluvial 
bottoms  of  the  western  rivers  are  so  famous,  with  a  trunk  thirty  or 
even  forty,  possibly  fifty  or  sixty,  feet  in  circumference,  while  perhaps 
a  hundred  feet  overhead  stretch  out  its  great  white  arms,  each  as 
large  as  the  biggest  trunks  themselves  of  most  eastern  forests,  and 
whose  massive  head  is  one  of  these  which  lifts  itself  so  high  above  the 
surrounding  tree  tops." 

In  1880,  of  the  one  hundred  and  two  counties  in  Illinois,  sixty-two 
were  from  fifteen  to  twenty-seven  per  cent,  in  forests  and  forty  from  six 
to  eight  per  cent. 

It  is  estimated  now  that  the  present  forest  area  of  Illinois  is  about 
two  million  acres,  or  five  and  one-half  per  cent,  of  the  total  land  area. 

The  woodland  is  disappearing  swiftly,  and  therefore  efforts  to  pre- 
serve some  of  the  beauty  of  her  country-side,  which  made  such  an  im- 
pression on  the  visitors  who  saw  it  as  it  was  when  the  white  men  came, 
will  soon  have  to  be  carried  out.  This  is  no  plea  for  the  economic 
value  to  Illinois  of  forest  preserves,  to  induce  rain  fall,  to  conserve 
moisture,  to  cover  the  hill  sides  and  prevent  erosion;  it  is  a  plea 
merely  to  preserve  the  beauty  of  the  state  by  lessening  its  forest  de- 
struction. What  the  difficulties  in  accomplishing  this  are  can  be  illus- 
trated by  the  trials  and  tribulations  that  have  befallen  the  attempt  to 
have  the  White  Pine  Forest  in  Ogle  County  made  a  state  park.  Here 
is  the  third  highest  point  in  Illinois,  containing  the  only  group  of 
native  white  pine  in  the  state — the  southern  limit  of  that  kingly  tree, 
which  sweeps  northward  to  Hudson  Bay.  Altogether  there  are  about 
five  hundred  acres  of  beautiful  forest  in  this  tract,  mostly  hardwood, 
such  as  can  nowhere  be  duplicated  in  the  state.  Thirteen  years  ago  a 
bill  was  passed  by  both  houses  of  the  state  legislature  appropriating 
for  its  purchase  $30,000.  Governor  Yates  vetoed  it  on  the  score  of 
economy.  Bills  have  been  introduced  at  other  sessions  but  none  has 
come  before  a  Governor.  No  bill  has  been  introduced  during  Governor 
Dunne's  term,  as  he  explained  to  the  White  Pine  Forest  Association 
officials  that  he  would  veto  any  bill  for  this  purchase  should  it  ever 

[11] 


come  to  him.  To-day  it  would  take  twice  as  much  money  to  buy  the 
tract  as  was  originally  asked. 

There  are  many  other  counties  which  have  forest  survivals  suitable 
for  state  parks,  as  for  instance  the  towering  bluff  above  Savannah  on 
the  Mississippi  in  Mt.  Carroll  County,  and  a  forested  valley  near 
Mt.  Carroll.  This  particular  county  has  a  well  organized  association, 
and  it  is  expected  to  make  a  strong  fight  at  the  next  legislature  to 
pass  a  state  park  bill.  Joe  Davis  County,  next  north  from  Mt.  Carroll, 
has  about  the  finest  scenery  in  the  state;  it  was  all  originally  wooded; 
is  hilly  and  broken,  and  contains  one  spot  at  the  junction  of  the  two 
branches  of  the  Apple  River  where  there  is  a  gorge  two  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  deep  and  not  more  than  ten  to  fifteen  rods  wide — this  is  two 
and  a  half  times  as  high  as  any  similar  formation  at  Starved  Rock. 
All  of  this  lends  itself  most  admirably  to  park  purposes.  A  thousand 
acres  here  could  be  bought  for  a  ridiculous  sum.  Also  in  the  same 
county  is  Charles  Mound,  as  the  cloud  capped  pinnacle  is  named,  which 
is  the  highest  spot  in  the  state.  Now,  if  there  is  anything  which 
''Illinois, — Illinois,"  ought  to  do  it  is  to  surround  that  height  with  a 
park  and  prevent  some  railway  company  from  carrying  it  off. 

Mr.  Spencer  Ewing,  one  of  Bloomington's  most  enlightened  citizens, 
urges  that  some  of  the  twenty-five  hundred  acres  of  forest  lands  near 
his  city  still  held  by  descendants  of  Mr.  Isaac  Funk,  who  entered  most 
of  it  from  the  government  on  Mexican  land  warrants,  should  be  pre- 
served. The  owners,  being  hard-headed  practical  people,  are  using  it 
as  they  need. 

Not  a  few  are  quite  familiar  with  the  Higginbotham  forest  at  Joliet. 
No  park  or  forest  reservation  discussion  can  fail  to  give  that  honorable 
mention. 

Some  state  park  enthusiasts  go  so  far  as  to  advocate  preserving  a 
piece  of  unspoiled  prairie.  That  is  rather  difficult  to  find,  but  a  post 
graduate  prairie  flower  specialist  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  Mr.  H. 
C.  Sampson,  astonished  me  by  the  information  that  within  the  city  limits 
of  Chicago,  at  the  corner  of  South  48th  Avenue  and  87th  Street,  was  a 
whole  section  of  land — six  hundred  and  forty  acres — which  had  never 
had  a  house  on  it,  and  only  one  hundred  acres  of  it  had  ever  been 
plowed.  Altogether  there  are  two  thousand  acres  of  natural  prairie  at 
that  border  point  of  our  densely  populated  city.  Some  of  this  ought 
certainly  to  be  taken  over  by  the  Outer  Belt  Park  System  of  Cook 
County. 

A  state  park  survey  would  consider  also  the  sand  dunes  region 
near  the  upper  Mississippi  in  Illinois,  a  worthless  but  picturesque  bit 
of  desert,  and  the  unrivalled  and  unique  Lotus  flower  beds  near  Antioch 
in  Lake  County. 

ONE  HUNDRED  STATE  PARKS. 

I  have  a  solution  to  offer  on  the  State  Park  problem.  The  main 
difficulty  seems  to  be  to  get  first  in  the  public's  eye  the  need  of  pre- 
serving something  of  the  beauty  we  still  have  with  us,  and  next  of 

[12] 


persuading  the  people  in  one  part  of  the  state  that  they  will  benefit 
by  taxing  themselves  to  make  a  park  a  hundred  miles  distant.  There 
is  merit  in  this  last  objection.  A  solution  suggests  itself  to  me.  It  is 
often  easier  to  do  big  things  than  it  is  little  ones;  it  would  be  better 
to  have  a  state  park  in  each  county  in  the  state.  Leaving  out  Cook, 
which  is  solving  its  own  problem,  and  the  smallest  county,  we  might 
have  one  hundred  parks  say  of  one  thousand  acres  each.  The  log- 
rolling method  of  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  legislation  ought  to  apply 
equally  well  here.  Each  state  legislator  should  become  vitally  inter- 
ested; his  district  would  be  in  it  to  get  something — and  he  ought  to 
get  it— beauty  should  not  be  too  far  distant.  There  are  plenty  of  bleak 
and  barren  spaces  in  the  state.  Some  counties  are  naturally  almost 
treeless;  in  such  cases  forestry  could  create  a  prairie  grove  or  perhaps 
utilize  the  waste  ground  along  the  highways.  It  would  be  a  wonderful 
thing  if  there  were  long  timber-belts,  serving  both  as  wind  breaks  and 
for  beauty,  paralleling  many  of  Illinois'  flat  and  forbidding  prairie 
roadways. 

One  hundred  county  parks  of  one  thousand  acres  each  would  make 
altogether  one  hundred  thousand  acres.  The  Yosemite  National  Park 
in  California  contains  eight  hundred  thousand  acres  alone.  Our  neigh- 
bor Wisconsin  has  set  aside  one  single  tract  of  four  hundred  thousand 
acres.  Would  one  hundred  thousand  acres  be  too  much  for  rich,  pros- 
perous Illinois?  Most  of  the  land  suitable  for  parks  has  little  value 
for  farming  purposes.  The  best  sites  are  the  banks  along  the  streams 
just  where  nature  put  the  trees  originally. 

Let  us  see  how  it  would  work  out  near  Chicago.  If  we  begin  with 
the  Fox  River  in  Lake  County  and  follow  it  through  its  windings  in 
McHenry,  Kane,  Kendall,  to  its  mouth  at  Ottawa  in  La  Salle,  we  find 
the  roads  follow  the  stream.  Sometimes  they  are  only  a  few  feet  away 
and  at  others  a  quarter  of  a  mile  distant.  Often  the  roads  are  twenty  to 
fifty  feet  above  the  stream.  The  space  between  the  roads  and  the  river 
was  originally  forested,  and  some  surviving  or  second-growth  trees  still 
mark  every  mile  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  included.  A  county  park 
scheme  would  permit  utilizing  this  river  bank.  Under  a  forester's  care, 
it  would  soon  come  back  to  true  forest  conditions.  State  roads  are  now 
under  way,  and  soon  we  would  have  without  excessive  taxation  a  boule- 
vard at  small  cost,  beautiful  every  mile  of  the  way.  The  same  prin- 
ciple could  be  applied  from  Ottawa  all  down  the  Illinois  Valley  to 
St.  Louis.  Almost  identical  conditions  exist  in  the  Rock  River  Valley, 
along  the  Kankakee,  the  Sangamon,  the  Vermillion,  and  many  other 
streams.  It  would  transform  the  state  highways  from  places  one 
wanted  to  get  over  as  quickly  as  possible  into  one  long  succession  of 
delightful  views,  and  make  lingering  and  slow  motoring  a  thing  to  be 
desired. 


[13] 


THE  INDIANA  DUNE  COUNTRY. 

If  some  one  should  tell  us  that  thirty  miles  from  where  we  now  are 
was  a  Cathedral  of  Dreams,  which  had  been  a  thousand  years  in  build- 
ing, which  was  a  marvel  of  lofty  spires  and  stone  carvings,  was  adorned 
with  beautiful  statues,  had  windows  filled  with  wonderful  glass,  chapel 
walls  decorated  by  the  masters  of  the  centuries,  and  that  the  whole  struc- 
ture revealed  throughout  the  artistic  excellence  of  a  nation  long  prac- 
ticed in  the  making  of  beautiful  things — if,  taken  altogether  it  was  one 
of  the  most  precious  buildings  in  the  world,  and  then,  if  we  heard  that 
the  worshippers  had  moved  away  and  no  one  was  left  to  care  for  it, 
and  that  a  stone  crushing  plant  had  taken  an  option  on  it  to  use  its 
stone  as  material  out  of  which  to  build  roads,  would  we  not  think  all 
the  people  hereabouts  were  barbarians  if  they  did  not  bestir  themselves 
to  raise  a  fund  to  preserve  so  precious  a  work  of  art? 

But  within  forty  miles  of  us  lies  the  Dune  Country  of  Indiana, 
which  represents  the  work  of  one  hundred  times  one  thousand  years,  by 
such  artists  as  the  glaciers,  water,  wind,  and  sun,  until  you  find  there 
a  park  perfect,  beautiful;  a  fairy  land;  a  land  of  dreams;  a  land  of 
remoteness;  a  land  of  solitudes;  a  land  of  long  beaches;  a  land  on 
whose  frail  shore  strong  waves  beat  at  times  with  a  thunderous  roar; 
a  land  so  fair  and  fine  no  city  park  could  be  made  to  equal  it  by  the 
expenditure  of  countless  millions.  This  wondrous  eighteen  mile  stretch 
is  for  sale, — who  buys?  Shall  it  be  an  armor  plate  concern  who  will 
when  in  possession  destroy  it  all?  Shall  Indiana  and  Illinois  together 
join  in  an  agitation  for  its  preservation,  in  the  event  that  the  movement 
to  make  it  a  national  park  shall  fail? 

William  Kent's  fine  act  in  giving  the  Muir  Woods  to  San  Francisco 
should  stimulate  imitators  in  Chicago  to  give  five  or  ten  thousand  acres 
of  the  Dune  Country  to  state  care  forevermore. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  closing  than  the  following 
eloquent  plea  for  preserving  out-door  beauty  from  the  pen  of  our  own 
Jens  Jensen,  whose  appreciation  is  based  on  international  observation 
and  knowledge: 

"Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  our  Illinois  landscape  is  as  rich  in 
beauty  as  the  best  in  the  world?  Have  you  ever  studied  the  charm  of 
our  woods  in  winter,  their  beauty  of  composition,  of  color  and  texture; 
the  brown  of  the  oak,  the  purple  of  the  crabapple  and  plum,  the  gray 
of  poplar  and  hawthorne,  the  pink  and  red  of  the  dogwood,  and  the 
different  shades  of  the  grasses?  A  poem  of  strength  and  beauty  is 
this  winter  picture.  And  then,  when  the  dawn  of  the  year  arrives, 
when  the  air  tingles  with  the  fragrance  of  new-born  life,  when  the  crust 
of  Mother  Earth  is  broken,  the  winter  landscape  takes  on  its  bridal 
gown  and  appears  reborn  in  charm  and  beauty.  Only  fairies  may 
tread  upon  the  soft  carpet  of  delicate  flowers  covering  the  forest  floor. 
The  plum,  arrayed  in  purest  white,  lightens  up  the  prairie  way  beyond 
the  forest  border. 

"Crab  apples  clad  in  delicate  pink  and  hawthorne  dressed  in  gar- 
ments of  white  bring  joy  into  the  hearts  of  prairie  folks,  a  living  joy, 

[14] 


and  lasting,  which  is  finding  expression  in  the  art  of  our  people. 
Again,  when  summer  is  waning  and  the  first  waves  of  crisp  air  have 
touched  the  leaves  of  Mother  Earth's  green  mantle,  upon  a  stroke 
from  the  hand  of  the  Great  Magician  the  landscape  bursts  into  fire, 
flaming  out  with  the  sunset  over  the  prairies.  The  festival  in  which 
the  out-of-door  partakes  before  bidding  us  goodby  to  winter's  sleep, 
this  color  splendor  of  our  woodlands,  is  equaled  in  no  other  land. 

"All  this  beauty  is  our  own,  pure  and  unadulterated.  It  is  the  shrine 
at  which  the  poet  and  artist  worship.  It  is  the  spring  from  which  they 
drink  eternal  youth.  Here  the  soul  is  touched  with  divine  fire;  and 
from  here  their  messages  to  their  people  are  filled  with  sincerity  and 
purity. 

"And  so  it  is  the  very  soul  of  our  country  that  we  are  seeing 
threatened.  It  is  pleading  for  its  life;  pleading  for  recognition  in 
town  and  country.  It  is  our  only  hope  for  any  expression  of  our  own 
in  art  and  literature. 

"Is  it  worth  saving?  Shall  we  build  our  homes  and  live  our  lives 
amid  such  surroundings?" 


[15] 


